Surveillance Report: Weekly News For Digital Freedom

France Banned Social Media For Under-15s, Plus A Hidden Device In Millions Of US Cars

July 24 Β· 41 min Β· 40.1 MB
0:00-41:44

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France has become the first country in Europe to ban social media for children under 15. Meanwhile there's real good news elsewhere: the UK's incoming PM dropped digital ID entirely, and California's Senate killed its browser-level age mandate and exempted open source operating systems.

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Thanks to the EasyOptOuts team for sponsoring Surveillance Report!

In this episode:

  • HIGHLIGHT: France's under-15 social media ban, the UK dropping digital ID, and California scaling back its age-gating law
  • A device dealers install in cars across the US that leaves them open to Bluetooth unlocking and disabling
  • New stats showing the majority of Chat Control reports are false alarms, and that investigations are largely targeting minors themselves
  • Courts forcing Apple and Google to open up: EU interoperability requirements upheld, and third-party app stores landing on Google Play
  • Data Breaches: Suno (55M users), South Korea's diplomatic corps, Romania's entire land registry wiped, Ernst & Young, EstΓ©e Lauder, Chick-fil-A, and Coca-Cola's Fairlife
  • Threats: wp2shell WordPress exploits, an Adobe Chrome extension exposing WhatsApp Web chats, a 7-Zip RCE, a critical Zoom account takeover, credit card data flowing to ICE, and period tracker Stardust sharing health data with an analytics firm
  • FOSS+: Signal polls in DMs, Tor Browser 15.0.19, YubiKey 5.8, native containers in Firefox 153, Vivaldi 8.1, WhatsApp's first-party encrypted backups, Briar entering maintenance mode, the Mullvad donation controversy, and our Techlore Tools v2026.07 release

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    πŸ”— SOURCES & LINKS
    View all sources here: https://techlore.tech/france-bans-under-15s-from-social-media-a-hidden-device-leaves-us-cars-hackable-and-courts-force-apple-and-google-open/

    ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS

    • (00:00) - WELCOME TO SURVEILLANCE REPORT
    • (00:46) - FRANCE BANNING SOCIAL MEDIA + MORE
    • (08:04) - A SCARY CAR EXPLOIT
    • (12:42) - STATS ON CHAT CONTROL
    • (15:16) - OUR SPONSOR: EASY OPT OUTS
    • (16:40) - APPLE & GOOGLE OPENING UP
    • (20:26) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: DATA BREACHES
    • (24:18) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: THREATS
    • (32:08) - DEFENSE BULLETIN: FOSS+

    πŸŽ₯ VIDEO
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    πŸ“° ABOUT SURVEILLANCE REPORT
    Your essential weekly tech news podcast covering the latest threats to security, privacy, and digital freedom. Hosted by Henry Fisher from Techlore.